David Ortiz wants a multi-year deal

Gotta give David Ortiz credit for confidence. When he started in with that “I love Boston and I want to retire with the Red Sox” stuff last week, I thought it was the prelude to a campaign to get his $12.5 million 2011 option picked up. Big Papi is obviously not so constrained in his vision, however. He doesn’t merely want an additional year. He wants a multi-year deal:

“I’m going to tell you, I ain’t going nowhere . . . I don’t want one year. Why should I return for one year and go through the same [stuff] I’m going through now, just because it’s my last year? No. I like to be left alone when I’m playing baseball. I know how to clean my [stuff] up.’'

Never mind that this little campaign of Ortiz’s involves convincing Theo Epstein to do what he’d never, ever do, and that’s giving a multi-year deal to an aging slugger whose slow starts suggest he could totally lose it at any moment and who, for added flavor, spent half a season attempting to start up negotiations through the media.

Yes, Ortiz is having a nice season. Yes, he’s immensely popular in Boston. But no, that doesn’t change the fact that there are a million reasons for the Red Sox to go no more than one year with Ortiz beyond 2010, and at a lower salary than he’s currently making.